Scatterism

Alex and Greg Pass, argue that that URLs could be standardized:

In other words, if there was a standard way to turn things into URLs, then finding information would be a lot easier.

— Alex Iskold, Standard URLs - Proposal for a Web with Less Search

Alex, that’s not entirely true. Guessing information locations could be slightly easier, but not finding.

I don’t understand why would we need a standard for creating URLs. We’ve been running away from classical taxonomies and hailing tags everywhere, we’ve been trying once and again to organize the chaos that is the Web, and so far, I believe, the job’s well done.

Plus, the Web can’t possibly be changed with a top-down method: standards can’t be forced on “lower classes”; people resist change.

Take for example the development of RSS and Atom. Both only became adopted (and formally standardized) when they were needed. Compare that to the adoption of late W3C standards.

I absolutely agree that URLs shouldn’t remain meaningless. I wouldn’t want to see a jumble of numbers and letters that are only significant to someone else. Give me a URL I can speak in a phone call, and you have my recommendation vote.

If we were to standardize URLs, effectively converting them to lists of categories, we’ll be reinventing classification systems. I think it’s a little overwhelming to remember which goes where in a gigantic ontology tree.